Underwater Rockland

2017-2018, 10 mins

Cold, dark, and mostly lifeless. This is a common -but inaccurate- perception of the underwater world in Maine. The harbor of Rockland has a surprisingly vibrant underwater life. Like many harbors along the coast of Maine, this port has been home to shipbuilding, shipping, fish harvesting and processing and -more recently- a growing number of recreational boaters. Below it all, the silent harbor creatures have mostly held on to their secrets, while boats pass overhead enroute to another part of Penobscot Bay, the Gulf of Maine, or the Northwest Atlantic. In the course of both day and night dives within the harbor, Caitlin Cleaver, the Director of Science and Research at the Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership, is our narrator and guide. We meet life that stays in one place from birth to death, like anemones. We meet others who move around within the harbor; like sea urchins, sea stars. Seals and lobsters come from further afield. All of these creatures, like us, inhabit this place as home.